Dancing in the Dark
by Fae Starfire
Summary: A short one-shot between our favorite Gryffindor princess and Slytherin Prince. Enjoy!


_On my waist….through my hair…._

She was drunk on music. Feeling every beat and moving her body to the rhythm, Hermione let herself surrender. She let all of the exams, books, studying, upcoming essays…leave her mind. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Harry making out with  
a very beautiful Slytherin girl with long black hair.

"Ginny must be pissed." She thought to herself.

 _Dance, dance, dance….dan-dancin in the dark…_

Suddenly, the lights went out. Hooping and hollering was heard almost instantaneously, some people laughing as they tripped over themselves. A few people started casting patronus charms around the room.

Hermione kept dancing, seeming oblivious to the fact that she couldn't see two inches in front of her. Or perhaps, she just didn't care. She loved this song, it made her forget herself, and she felt sexy for the first time in a long time. Soon people  
were raving with transfigured glow sticks. They were moving them through the air fluidly, it was captivating as they floated along the ceiling.

Hermione felt hands on her waist suddenly from behind.

"Ron?" she asked, rather loudly, she could barely hear anything. She thought she heard a response, but wasn't sure.

He was grinding into her softly, moving with her to the music.

 _Tell me baby…if its wrong? To let my hands do what they want…_

She turned around to face him but couldn't make out any features, everything was blending together around her. From the alcohol, darkness, she didn't know. Maybe a mixture of both. She straddled his leg then while she danced, her hands gripping his smooth  
hair. He smelled….intoxicating. She knew that smell, she smelled it in the cauldron when professor Slughorn showed them Amortentia in class. He smelled of cinnamon, sandalwood, and burning wood. Had she lied in class? Of course—no one needed to know  
her secrets.

He cupped her face in his hands, bringing his own closer to inhale her, nuzzling her ear and tangling his fingers into her hair. Music was blaring around them, chaos of drunkenness in every crevice of the common room. She felt like she might melt into  
the floor, having never been touched like this by anyone.

"Hermione…" He whispered seductively into her ear before caressing her cheekbones with his lips. Her eyes fluttered as he said her name, and the caress of his lips felt amazing against her skin. He grabbed her hand suddenly and started pulling her from  
the mess of bodies.

"How can he see?" She thought, as she clutched his hand with both of hers, worried they may be separated amongst the crowd.

She could barely make out the outline of a large couch he had led her to. Another couple was making out on the far side of it, oblivious of their new neighbors.

He pressed his forehead to hers as he pulled her to him again, his hot breath on her face, releasing his hand from her grasp as he outlined her face again with his fingertips. To her collarbone, slowly moving downward.

She closed her eyes, savoring the contact, melting into him. She didn't want this night to end. With one hand, she tangled her fingers into his hair, the other roaming his body. What had gotten into her? She could feel his strong physique and hard abs  
through his shirt and stopped suddenly, confused.

 _This isn't Ron…._ She thought. He seemed taller too, and his fingertips were long and graceful.

Her mystery man stood still, wondering if the brightest witch of her age had recognized him. He kept still as she traced her hands along his strong jaw line, his brow, the way his eyes were set into his face. His pointed nose, his soft lips. He breathed  
against her palm, grabbing her hand suddenly and kissing her flesh.

He stopped her thinking as he enveloped her lips with his own. His lips moving urgently as he begged for entrance. She hesitated, never having kissed anyone so passionately before. She let her mind go blank, granting him access and meeting his urgency,  
to his surprise, with her own fervor. Electricity seemed to course through her body as they held onto each other.

His scent was driving her wild, and it seemed hers had the same affect on him. She tangled her hands in his hair once more, his hands at her waist, crashing her body to his. He smiled into her kiss, stopping suddenly to move his lips to her jawline and  
slowly caressing down her neck. Hermione stifled a moan she didn't know she could produce. She felt like she was on fire.

"You better stop that…I'll whisk you away to my dormitory in a second." She pushed against him then, and he fell back onto the couch as she straddled him quickly, her skirt riding up slightly, not wanting their contact to break. She wanted to be in control  
now.

Snaking her arms around his neck, Hermione moaned into his lips, testing him. His hands attacked her body again as he growled into her hair, less cautious as he had been before. He clawed at her shirt, wanting to feel her skin against his.

She began rocking in his lap, enjoying the responsive moans she was receiving as she did so, and glad of the darkness around them. No one could see how naughty she was being. She had never felt so wanted in her entire life.

"You're so beautiful…." He whispered into her ear.

She smiled to herself and felt safe in his arms, her mystery man, if only for tonight.

"I want to look at you." She whispered back. "Who are you? What house are you in?" She asked, slurring her words a bit as she jumbled the sentences together.

"I'd rather not say, Hermione." He replied, sounding uncomfortable. She could hear it in his voice.

"It's Slytherin, isn't-it?" She answered for him, fingering the spaces in his shirt between the buttons, trying to make out his face in the darkness.

"What makes you so sure?" He smirked through his words, she could hear his inflection.

"I dunno…" she answered back, "Just a-feeling…"

"Wait…"She questioned, furrowing her brow. "How did you know it was me, on the dance floor, the lights…."

"I had been watching you…." He whispered back into her ear, taking one of her hands and lacing it in his fingers. "Besides..." He chuckled, bringing his lips closer to her ear. "I can taste your scent in the air, when you walk into a room."

She closed her eyes as his words flowed off his tongue, but quickly was brought back to reality, still puzzled. "For how long were you watching me?" She asked, straining to see him though the darkness, to no avail.

"I'm always watching you…." He answered back. "I tend to watch things I can't have more closely, you see…" He hesitated. "I've basically been watching you since first year." He hoped he didn't sound like a stalker.

She giggled at this insane statement. She was Hermione Granger, an insufferable know-it-all, a mudblood…..no one noticed her, she was sure of this.

Her brow furrowed again, trying to make sense of this. "Why didn't you tell me in first year, or fourth, or this year? We're almost done with our sixth year here! Why did you wait until now?" She sounded exasperated and annoyed, and hit him a little more  
roughly then she meant to on the arm. He caught her wrist in his hand, bringing it up to his lips.

He interlocked their hands then and said "Oh, I know you wouldn't want me..."

"But, I'm here. I'm in your lap for Merlin's sake. When have you ever seen me, Hermione Granger, in the lap of what seems to be and absolute stranger?" She pleaded with him, wishing the lights on. What a time to leave her wand in her dormitory.

"Krum..."He whispered through his teeth, a hint of annoyance in his tone.

Hermione rolled her eyes in the darkness. Viktor had been...sweet. Her first kiss even. But nothing like this. She ignored his comment, getting to the point fervently and grasping at the sides of his face, her brown eyes straining in the darkness again  
to recognize him.

"I feel this connection to you...this...electricity, I can't explain it. Don't you feel it? It's like an aura around us, like magnets. Just-just tell me who you are!" She was getting angry now. It wasn't in her nature to not know the answer.

He turned his head away from her, sighing into her palm. "We can't be together Granger." As quickly as his words left his lips, he felt her stiffen in his lap. Realizing his mistake, he cursed under his breath. He'd just given himself away, there was  
no way she didn't recognize the familiar venom she had come to be accustomed to.

Her brain swirled around in its drunken state, trying to make sense of who this could be she was on top of. Then he said it, her surname, in a way only one person in this whole universe said her surname. It hit her like a ton of bricks.

"Mal-" She managed before his lips interrupted her with a fierce kiss. Hermione tried to push him away, losing, he was too strong. He broke the kiss, hushing her and putting his forehead to hers.

"Hermione…please." he said to her, "Just don't think." He sounded defeated.

She stared at him through the darkness, seeing the glassiness of his eyes only, not believing the thoughts that were churning in her skull.

He kissed her again, softly at first, she let him, her body betraying her. He caressed her lips with his own, sucking on her bottom lip and cupping her face in his hands. She brought her own hands to his face, feeling wetness near his eyes. She felt sad.  
How could this be? Malfoy hated her….just hated….

"I'm sorry" he whispered in her ear. "So….so sorry….for everything." He traced her collarbone with one finger, nibbling her earlobe softly before tracing down her neck with kisses.

He stopped suddenly, feeling courageous, and brought his forehead to hers once more. "I'm sorry for the name calling, the belittling, the sneers, the laughter. I…I never wanted any of this…I've always…." She stopped him, two of her fingers on his lips.

"Who are you?" She asked, the double meaning on the edges of her voice as she spoke. Wonder and confusion in the question all at once. As if she was witnessing a miracle. Who was Draco Malfoy?

"Someone I wish I could be…." He answered brokenly, bringing his hands down to her lap, palms open.

"Why are you doing this?" She asked, full of so many questions. She wasn't as tipsy as she thought, and was beginning to think clearer and clearer. She toyed with a lock of his hair, putting it behind his ear.

"I thought that was pretty obvious…." He trailed off, "I'm…I'm in love with you Hermione." He drew her name out on his lips. Enunciating every syllable carefully, as if the word might break. She looked back at him with half lids, in a daze as she listened,  
she loved the way her name rolled off his tongue.

Her breath caught in her throat, realizing the meaning of what he just said. "I…what?" She thought, no words able to escape her lips.

He realized he had shocked her, grasping at the sided of her face "Don't you see? All these years….I've been torturing you, eavesdropping, not because I hate you, but because its the only way I can talk to you without signing my own death sentence….I  
can't bare the thought of ignoring you, even though I've always guessed you might liked me to. There are too many ears, too many….evil people my family is close to that could hurt you. I'm not allowed to…" He choked on his own words, trying to get  
out everything he wanted to say at once, everything he had been holding on to for so long.

"I don't expect you to forgive me, but….you just had to know…I can't live with myself anymore, lying to you….it kills me everyday. I had to tell you...be close to you. I thought maybe one day, we could..." His words were broken, defeated, putting his  
forehead on her shoulder. "I'm so sorry Hermione."

Hermione sat there blindsided, in the arms of her sworn enemy, of someone she thought wanted her dead. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. A boy she thought she knew as being a bully, incapable of feeling anything other than malice, was in her  
arms begging for her forgiveness, to see him as he truly wanted to be.

For whatever reason, she believed him.

The lights suddenly came back on and Hermione could finally look at him fully. All of his features looked new to her. The way his hair fell in his face, his strong jaw line, his not so pointed nose. And finally, her eyes fell on a pair of pained silver  
ones. Draco Malfoy, a boy she really didn't know at all. There stared into each other eyes for what seemed like aneternity. Chocolate brown and liquid silver.

"Hermione, what on earth are you doing?" Ron shrieked, wand out, stumbling over to both of them. The crowd of people hushed, all eyes on the pair of enemy houses on the couch.

She ignored him. As if in her own world with just Draco. The two of them the only people on the planet at this moment. They continued to stare into each others eyes.

"So what now?" She asked, feeling silly.

He grasped her hand again and entwined their fingers together. His eyes searching from their hands to her face.

He grinned. "Let's find out."


End file.
